Currently, many universities are focused on incentivising and rewarding a small number of academic activities, including publishing and attracting external funding, while other activities such as archiving data, (open) peer review and Citizen Science are implicitly neglected during assessment. Likewise, there is a strong focus on Journal Impact Factors, while Real World Impact is largely ignored.
Nonetheless, many researchers already practise Open Science to some extent by, for example, publishing in Open Access journals and participating in research outside their expertise to contribute to multi-disciplinary problems. However, the shift toward Open Science is a shared responsibility, and only by changing the incentives will we fully allow researchers to take part in the transition to Open Science and to contribute to the sustainable challenges.
The overall goal of EUTOPIA is to stimulate Open Science practices and contributions to multi-disciplinary problems that have a real life rather than a pure academic impact.
EUTOPIA-TRAIN brought forward mainstreaming Open Science and increasing societal engagement as one of its top priorities. The following goals were defined:
- Mainstreaming comprehensive & critical Open Science practices
- Deduplicating efforts
- Leading by example
- Increasing the channels for societal outreach
Research institutions are supporting their researchers in embracing transparent and reproducible science. The EUTOPIA-TRAIN project aimed to be a stellar example, uniting efforts to provide top-notch Open Science training.
Output:
- 6 training guides providing hands-on information (available online)
- 6 webinars with keynotes from Publishing Directors, European Commission policy officers, (senior) researchers, and data stewards
Impact & Uptake
- 245 participants during the events
- 912 downloads of training materials (1,189 views)
A twofold objective:
- Amplify the visibility of the Open Science efforts of researchers within the EUTOPIA network
- Cultivate a culture of crossinstitutional collaboration among these researchers
Output
- OpenAIRE EUTOPIA and Monitor Portal on which publications and datasets of EUTOPIA partners can be found
- While many researchers practise Open Science to some extent, the shift towards Open Science is a shared responsibility
- Our goal was to create a framework policy conditions for research assessment which reflect Open Science efforts
Output
- Two background notes on research evaluation with overviews of developments and approaches
- Online workshop at the EUTOPIA level
- Framework policy providing general principles and a toolbox of indicators for inspiration
Impact & Uptake
- Broader discussions on research assessment within the Alliance
- Ultimately, EUTOPIA signed the CoARA Agreement
- Background notes downloaded 709 times (viewed almost 14,000 times)
Citizen Science is scientific research entirely or partially conducted by nonscientists (citizens), often in collaboration with or supervised by professional scientists. We aimed to raise awareness of Citizen Science among EUTOPIA researchers and university policymakers and offer them education and support.
Output
- An international community of practice on citizen science, sustained by a series of peer learning sessions
- Two online training events
- Citizen Science Starter kit providing guidelines tips and tricks to researchers (available online)
- Establishment of a Citizen Science Education and Support Service
Impact & Uptake
- The Citizen Science Starter kit was downloaded 1.117 times